User blog comment:Cpt Crimson/DmC sales way lower than dmc4's/@comment-5065652-20130223101024/@comment-134861-20130311234818

Mundus's spawn is...not difficult, but hard to defeat, yes. That's mostly due to the complete lack of imagination of the boss fight, and the fact that you are, once again, encouraged to use the same combos over and over. Hell, when you actually get to deal permanent damage, it can only be done with basic attacks, and combos are discouraged. The only thing that requires skill to it is the bloody Payoff combo necessary to fight quickly, and that's one of the worst-controlled techniques in the game. Still, the game rewards you for using the same basic combo of Angel Lift, slashes, dodge, just as it does with most bosses and enemies...when in other games, you were rewarded the most for being stylish against bosses.

There's "difficulty because the boss has ridiculous defenses and HP and damage output", and "difficulty because the game requires skill". One of these means that you just toss a lot of time and repetition in, the other requires you to master the system. And that's why DmC is one of the lesser games, alongside DMC2 (which is equally terrible in this regard).